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Why does a CSV show garbled characters or sit in one column in Excel on a Mac?

By Kayabyte · Last updated 4 November 2026

Garbled letters such as “é” instead of “é” mean the file was read with a different text encoding than the one it was saved in. Everything crammed into one column means the file uses a separator other than the one Excel expected, often a semicolon. The CSV itself is usually fine; only the reading is wrong. Microsoft’s page on importing text and CSV files says that with Get & Transform Data, From Text/CSV, you choose the delimiter from a list and see the effect immediately in the preview (support.microsoft.com, checked 4 November 2026). Choose it there instead of double-clicking the file, and do not save over the original.

Wrong characters: the encoding

A text file does not say how its letters are stored. Common choices are UTF-8, UTF-16 and Windows-1252. If a program guesses wrong, accented and non-Latin letters turn into two-character garbage or question marks. Typical causes are a file made on Windows or exported by older software, or a file saved as UTF-8 and read as something else. Look at the file in a plain text editor that lets you pick the encoding and see which one shows your letters correctly. Then re-save it in the encoding the next program expects, or import it choosing that encoding where the import screen offers one. The menu names differ between Excel versions, so look at your import preview.

One column: the delimiter

CSV means comma-separated, but many European programs write semicolons, because the comma is the decimal mark there. Tab and pipe files exist too. In the Excel import preview from the Microsoft page above, change the delimiter until the columns split correctly.

Many files: the same fix, repeated

Doing this once is easy. Doing it for a folder of exports means repeating the import for each file. Free routes are a script, for example Python with pandas, or LibreOffice from Terminal, which makes its own guesses, so check the results.

With Gridhand

Gridhand Convert reads CSV, TSV and delimited text and detects the encoding (a byte-order mark, whether the bytes are valid UTF-8, then other common encodings such as Windows-1252) and the delimiter (comma, semicolon, tab or pipe, by how consistent the first rows are). It writes a formatted .xlsx, and IDs with leading zeros stay text. The preview shows the result before anything is written. If a file shows odd characters or one wide column, you can choose the encoding and delimiter yourself and look at the preview again. Originals are never modified. Detection is a guess based on the file, so check a few accented names in the preview.

Steps with Gridhand

  1. Drop the CSV files, or a folder, into Gridhand and choose Convert, “CSV, TSV or text to XLSX”.
  2. Look at the preview. If letters look wrong or everything is in one column, change the encoding or the delimiter.
  3. Choose an output folder and press Run.
  4. Open one .xlsx and compare a few names and numbers with the source.

Free for up to 3 files per run; Gridhand Pro is USD 49 once. Download Gridhand · Pricing

Questions

Did Excel damage my CSV? Opening a file does not change it. Saving over it can, so keep the original.

Will 0,125 be read as 125? In Gridhand, no: 0,125 is read as an eighth. The decimal mark differs by country, and Gridhand decides it column by column and warns when a value like 1,234 could be read either way; you can set the decimal mark yourself.

Can Gridhand read .xls files? No, only .xlsx, .xlsm, .csv, .tsv and delimited text.

Microsoft and Excel are trademarks of the Microsoft group of companies. Gridhand is made by Kayabyte and is not affiliated with or endorsed by Microsoft.